Too many forceps about an abdominal wound, one of which might become lost in the abdomen; too much catching of suture and ligament material about the hemostats, impeding work and annoying the operator, especially when forced to hurry in his work; too much loss of the assistant's power, due to his hands being so much employed in pulling retractors—experience of all these hindrances caused me to scheme to obtain some simple device to do away with these difficulties. The set of rings, which my instrument-maker has called an abdominal ring speculum, is the result.
The next thought which occurred to me was that of stretching a large sheet of sterile rubber dam over the ring, a small hole having been cut in the center of the sheet of rubber dam, thus completely covering the edge of the wound, skin and umbilicus with sterile rubber sheeting, and in a far more